of afternoon conversations and Puneri conversationalists...

We have some really great lunchtime conversations in my workplace. And that’s purely because of some great Puneri conversationalists. It’s really interesting to discover their traits and strange behaviour patterns. Traditional Punekars are to Maharashtra what the English are to Europe. Apart from the obvious disparity in the scale of these former mentioned areas, of course. Not only are they prim and proper all the time, Punekars are very sarcastic and haughty as well. They are a nice lot, albeit their strange traits and ways of talking. You have to know them and be like them to accept them.

Old school Punekars are gracious hosts, as long as you speak what they want to listen to and talk only when spoken to, and do not consume any of their precious resources. But you have to be a cheeky old school Puneri guest to be able to keep excellent relations with them, which might vary from mild insolence to sheer disregard.

Walk into a shop and you’ll be attended to immediately, as soon as you finish looking around and spot what you want to buy and manage to captivate the attention of the respective salesman / woman. Their motto: “shopkeepers are kings… consumers can wait...” Your presence is a mere hurdle to their business. They can do much better without you. The goods are top quality, and if you cannot be patient, you are free to go to any of the other non-maharashtrian traders. They may pamper you, treat you like Gods, and behave like you mean the world to them, but I’ll eat my words if you find anything that’s even remotely better than what you find in traditional Puneri shops.

Any true Punekar, irrespective of his/her age, maturity and general intelligence will always say that Pune isn’t what it used to be earlier even if at certain times, its spoken with a certain amount of remorse and nostalgia.

Once you become a Punekar, no other place suits you. The water, the weather, food, the greenery, et all… outside Pune becomes just unbearable. Punekars may be like the British, but they can beat any Spanish and Italian when it comes to siesta times. Everything shuts down between one to 4 in the afternoons, due to the most gorgeous weather save a few days in mid May… although, the Punekars will swear to the fact that it’s as cold here in winter as it is in Kashmir, even if the temperature falls a degree below normal. To understand this, ask a Mumbaikar… He will agree with the Punekar for once…

Traffic… now that’s one issue that I can dedicate a whole essay to. I’ll refrain from doing so, but there are some particularly unique issues cropping up here too. For instance, pedestrians are the most unwanted accessories on Pune roads. And foot-paths are for small time vendors and weekly/daily vegetable markets, which are to be accessed using bikes, which are to be parked right in front of the concerned vendor… interesting.

What do I say about cyclists…? The mechanised traffic shares a love hate relationship with the poor geezers on bicycles. They love to hate them… About the cyclists great sense of traffic rules, righteousness and comic timing (they do make one laugh sometimes) - the less said, the better…

There is a wonderful public transport system running in the city of Pune. So wonderfully engrossed it is in public duty, that making profit is none of its business. Punekars will only attempt stepping onto any one of its buses, only if they are just the way they are in their half baked ideas of European public transport systems and the TV visions of the Delhi Metro. I don’t blame them… Punekars are the ones who acquire a two wheeler as soon as they pass out of 10^th standard, and start attending college because that’s just the way it is. There’s no the Punekars can dream of pressurising the PMC to improve public transport. They would rather pressurise the PMC to revoke its silly rule that makes helmets compulsory because it’s difficult to see around and hear traffic even though it’s ok to listen talk on the phone or to music while riding.

Punekars score in interesting debates and presentation of hypothetical ideas, as you might have realised.

A very typical trait of Punekars is criticising the very city and people that they are a part of. The holier than though attitude allows them ignorance enough to overlook their personal shortcomings. You have to like them… they are only human…

I am showing many signs of turning into one myself, (as you might have noticed by now) having being in the company of Punekars for the last six years…

I can go on and on about Punekars, it’s really never ending. But what I started off with was that two of my Puneri colleagues were talking about a certain type of khakra that was available in a certain shop.

Ketaki asked Sneha (typically Puneri names) when the current packet of khakra in her house might finish off…? And Sneha replied saying that Ketaki will be duly informed whenever that might happen.

In simpler words, Ketaki, in her tactful Puneri cheek, wanted Sneha to get a packet of Khakra for her, and Sneha, equally Puneri and cheeky, duly replied…

We all speak Marathi, but it’s obvious that we don’t speak the same language.